Poll: Alaska Shouldn’t Be In The Retirement Business

JUNEAU, Alaska, Jan. 5, 2017—In survey results released today by their representative association, Alaska small-business owners spoke with certainty on three issues that could surface in the upcoming session of the State Legislature but seemed uncertain on two others.

Every year the National Federation of Independent Business, America’s largest and leading small-business association, polls its members on state and national issues vital to their ability to own, operate and grow their enterprises. Results from the polls center NFIB’s lobbying positions in Washington, D.C. and in Juneau. NFIB has 350,000 dues-paying members nationwide, including nearly 2,000 in Alaska. Results from the NFIB-member ballots are released after a statistically valid sample is reached. The 2017 Alaska state ballot asked five questions.

When asked if they supported legislation requiring employers to offer state-sponsored retirement accounts to their employees, if they didn’t offer a retirement plan at all, 91 percent of NFIB-member, small-business owners voted ‘No,’ only 1 percent were in favor, and 8 percent were undecided.

With an almost equal amount of firmness, 77 percent of respondents supported changing the state’s Civil Asset Forfeiture Law to allow seizure of personal property only after a criminal conviction is secured, 12 percent were opposed, and 11 percent were undecided.

In one of two closer tallies, 45 percent would favor expanding crowd-source funding to public/private infrastructure projects, 31 percent were opposed to the idea, and 24 percent were undecided.

In the other close tally, 41 percent of NFIB-member, small-business owners oppose the state regulating online financial lenders, 39 percent would be in favor of it, and 20 percent were undecided.

Comment on the ballot results is available from NFIB/Alaska State Director Denny DeWitt at [email protected]

###

For more than 70 years, the National Federation of Independent Business has been the Voice of Small Business, taking the message from Main Street to the halls of Congress and all 50 state legislatures. NFIB annually surveys its members on state and federal issues vital to their survival as America’s economic engine and biggest creator of jobs. NFIB’s educational mission is to remind policymakers that small businesses are not smaller versions of bigger businesses; they have very different challenges and priorities.